Boyfriend's credit card debt

Hi! I’m new to this website and wanted to get some input from you all.

I have been dating my boyfriend for about 11 months and things have been wonderful! Well for the most part….We were both going thru a divorce when we met and I have a young daughter so we have had some ups and downs with the ex-husband but nothing major. Anyways, we have talked about the future and getting engaged, married, babies ect…. He is currently in school after being in the army for 6 years and will be finished this time next year. I thought we were an open book when it came to money and bills but he always seemed to shy away from talking about it much. Yesterday I pretty much asked him point blank if he has any credit card debt and he told me yes he does about $3,500.00 and he was just always embarrassed to tell me about it. I can’t help but to feel lied to about it…..Sure I never came out and asked before but we have talked about money, bills, ect….

Should I not feel this way?

A little more info, we live together in my house and I pay all the bills. I knew he was in school and had very little money because he is using the GI bill.

It seems odd that he didn’t mention it if you’ve talked about money and stuff, but maybe he’s embarrasssed and was hoping to just take care of it first. It’s not that much so as long as it wasn’t due to uncontrollable bad spending, I’d probably just let it go.

@TaylorBrooke05: i can understand you feeling that way but he probably really was embarassed to tell you. my DH wouldn’t show me his credit report when we moved in together. it was because he was embarrassed about his past mistakes and he knew i have excellent credit. he thought i was going to judge him. i told him i wouldn’t but i need to know so we can work on fixing it. $3500 luckily isn’t a huge amount of debt. it could be a lot worse!

@TaylorBrooke05: Ok, you are not married or engaged and your finances are not combined so I don’t see what his credit card debt has to do with you. As a student, I had very little money and had to use my credit card to buy ramen noodles. I managed to rack up a fair amount of debt over a summer with an unpaid internship supplemented witha part time job for minimum wage. I had rent and food, so yes I went into credit card debt. Also, when I got a better paying job, I paid it off.

3,500 is not enough to freak out about. Its a normal balance on a credit card, and can be paid off timely. While no debt would be better than his credit card balance, obviously it has nothing to do with you. If he was carrying a balance of $35,000 that might be a different story.

Leave it alone. He had no responsiblity to disclose all of his personal finances to you. I say this as someone who felt the need to disclose the amount of my student loans to my SO within three months of dating because they were quite high (as I went to law school), and I felt he deserved to know what he was getting into financially. But these are loans that will effect my life for decades. That balance could be paid off in under a year. I managed to pay off a similar balance in 6 mos of part time work.

He did tell me several times how embarrassed he was and he was planning on paying them off asap after school, but right now all he could do was pay the minimum payment. He also told me that he had cut them up a long time ago, so he is not using them anymore. So that is a big plus!

@TaylorBrooke05: How has he lied, if you are not sharing finances? Obviously he’s extremely embarrassed by the fact that he has CC debt, but imo it’s his decision at this moment wether to tell you or not. He didn’t lie by not telling you, he just didn’t share something he felt embarrassed about. Unless you are responsible for paying his debts then it really shouldn’t be an issue. Besides the fact that I expected it to be like 30k+ or something when I opened this thread, 3500 is very minimal compared to what most of america has in debt. Cut the guy some slack

@lawyerchick13:“Ok, you are not married or engaged and your finances are not combined so I don’t see what his credit card debt has to do with you.”

Agreed. Maybe he was planning to get it all paid off before things progressed further with you.

If you aren’t at least engaged and/or combining finances, he has no obligation to tell you about his credit card debt. Sure, it is nice to know but he doesn’t have to tell you. But now that he has, you can both work together to get it paid off.

@TaylorBrooke05: I think it’s understandable that he didn’t want to mention it before now. $3,500 is not really that much considering how much the average american is in debt for credit cards. He probably wanted to pay it off before it came up and was embarrased about it. As pp said- so long as it’s not from habitual overspending I really think it’s a non-issue, but I would be very firm that he gets one pass not telling you things like that & he just used it up. You don’t want it to become a habit of running up debt and then not telling you about it until it’s too late.

My & FI had talked about finances plenty of times but not until I straight up asked him point blank about his student loans did he tell me they were in default & he owed just as much as the day he left college (15+ years ago!)… We all have things we don’t want known for fear of shame, embarasment, judgment, etc….

@TaylorBrooke05: That’s not very much debt. Honestly, he was probably embarassed to tell you about his debt. It is probably looming over him, too. It’s not like he is 25K+ in credit card debt. You can pay off $3500 pretty quickly if you just focus on it. Maybe he never had help during tough times (and maybe you did?) Not sure, but just something to think about.

@TaylorBrooke05: thankfully the debt is not huge but he should be working to pay it off. you are not engaged yet but you are thinking of a future together and you are living together. i think debts should be discussed at your stage and i think he was just a bit too embarrassed.

the red flag for me is: you pay all of the bills and he is living in your house for free. how does he contribute to this relationship??

@mypinkshoes: Yes, I pay all the bills and he is paying nothing, I asked him to move in knowing that he could not pay any of them. After getting out the Army and going back to school he was living in a condo of his parents and paying all the utilities there. If we go out to dinner or somewhere to do something he always pays.

@TaylorBrooke05: I don’t think $3,500 is that much and it’s not that big a deal, but is there really no way for him to pay a little more than just the minimum payment? The minimum payment likely covers very little more than the interest payments if at all. He’s not really bringing the debt down at all by paying the minimum. Even $15-20 per month extra is better than nothing.